Page 66 of Third Time is the Charm (Passion and Perseverance #3)
She carefully slipped out the door of the ballroom into the eerily empty seating around just outside.
Her head turned from side to side, searching for the blonde bob that had disappeared out the same door just moments before.
Looking up the hallway on the right, she saw the familiar figure rounding the corner at the end of it, not looking behind her.
She must be going back to her room to regroup, realizing that we had more security waiting for her.
Beth tiptoed hurriedly in the same direction, stopping just short of the corner as she heard a door close.
Peering around the corner, she saw an empty hallway.
Her brows furrowed, wondering where Caro had gone to.
There were really only two options – either she’d went out through the ‘Exit’ door into the stairwell at the other end of the passage or her room was one of the ones in the hall and she’d gone inside.
Hoping for the latter, Beth continued quietly down the hall, trying to listen against each doorway for Caroline’s voice.
“Listening for me?” That very voice slithered through the space and up Beth’s spine. She froze in her tracks, adrenaline pumping through her veins.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Beth replied as she turned to face her tormenter who stood not even five feet away from her; at least her voice managed to come out cool and confident even though she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Caroline smirked. “Well, I’m glad I could pull you away from your date.” The word ‘date’ dripped with disdain, but the whole phrase made Beth realize that this had been Caro’s plan all along – to get her out of the room and alone.
“What do you want, Caroline? What is your problem?”
“You know what I want.” Her eyes narrowed. “Darcy is mine. He has always been mine and he will always be mine.”
“Except he doesn’t want you,” Beth scoffed. “And you don’t need him – you have Mrs. DeBourgh funding your entire life. You let him go – for years – before, why can’t you do that now?”
“That old hag was barely useful to me. No, Darcy is mine, you little, annoying bitch. He wants me,” she spat. “I know how to make him want me.”
Beth felt her fists clenching at Caro’s faulty and insulting assumptions, barely paying attention to the fact that it seemed like her relationship with Mrs. DeBourgh had been severed.
“ Darcy. Will. Never. Want. You.” Her words punctuated with her vehemence for this woman.
Her hands gripped her shoes, pulling them to her chest as though she was trying to protect her heart from the hate that Caroline was exuding.
Too late she realized her mistake.
Caro’s eyes narrowed on Beth’s hand – her left hand – and the ring that was sitting on her finger.
“What have you done?” Rage seethed from her voice before a crazed laugh escaped from her lips.
“It doesn’t matter – Darcy will want me; I’m not going to leave him any choice,” she snarled.
Beth felt her heart coming to a stop as Caroline reached into her purse and pulled out a gun, aiming it directly at Beth.
“And then, when you’re gone, I’ll just take that lovely bit of ice from your finger for myself. Just like I’ll take him.”
In slow motion, Beth saw Caroline cock the gun with an assured smile that said she knew she had won. The moment she pulled the trigger was the same moment Beth saw Darcy and John round the corner, stopping dead in their tracks at the sight in front of them.
“ Beth!” Darcy yelled, causing Caroline’s shot to fly just to the right of her arm.
Beth stared at him, the fact that she’d been shot at not yet registering in her mind.
The color drained from Darcy’s face, replaced by potent mixture of fury and fear, seeing Caroline with a smoking gun pointed at the woman he loved. Beth watched his fists clench and she put her hand out – not to protect herself from Caroline, but to stop Darcy.
By contrast, Caroline’s eyes were filled with a crazed level of anger, all rational thought having left her long ago. Her shot had missed and by now, if Darcy and John didn’t already have more back-up on the way, hotel security would have heard the gunshot.
Hearing Darcy behind her, Caroline began to turn – the gun staying trained on Beth – as he said, “ I’ll never fucking be yours.” His voice ice cold and menacing; his words containing the solemn implication the he would rather be dead than belong to Caroline again.
Beth saw the spark of rage in Caro’s eyes and knew, in that split second, that there was only going to be one way to stop her. And she was the only one close enough to do it.
“That’s what you think.” Beth heard Caro’s poisonous voice reply as her focus returned to her prey.
Beth didn’t know what came over her, but seeing Caroline begin to tighten her finger on the trigger again pulled Beth out of her paralysis.
Beth slung her broken shoe at Caro’s hand – missing the gun, but hitting her arm hard enough to deflect the shot she’d fired off.
Using that millisecond of surprise before the ‘boom’ from the gunshot had even quieted, Beth launched herself at Caroline; Beth locked her arms around Caro’s lower legs as she rammed her shoulder into Caro’s torso, sending them both flying to the ground, the impact sending off another stray bullet in the direction of Darcy and the handful of security before the weapon completely dislodged from Caroline’s hand.
Beth heard Caro’s scream of rage as they landed.
Beth’s entire body tensed, preparing for Caroline to attack her in some other way when suddenly, she was lifted off of the crazed woman and crushed against Darcy’s chest. Heart racing, her eyes blinked open, only able to partially see the commotion going on behind her as John, some of the other security guards, as well as two Boston police officers restrained Caroline, putting her under arrest.
She looked up at Darcy; his face was a stone mask, frozen from everything that had just happened. He didn’t move – he didn’t say a word – but, Beth could feel his chest pounding just as hard as hers.
“Darcy, are you ok?” she whispered still in a daze.
He didn’t answer. A few seconds later, Caroline was gone from the hallway and Darcy immediately reached underneath her, groaning slightly as he lifted her up and carried her to the elevator, punching the button to get to their room.
John halted the police from following them; Beth heard him say to give them a few minutes before asking for a statement.
When Darcy stepped off the elevator, Beth realized that her hand holding his arm felt like it was getting wetter.
She’d assumed at first that her palms were sweaty from the situation she’d just been put through, except it shouldn’t be getting worse.
Lifting her hand, she saw it pull away red from his shirt.
“Oh my God! Darcy! Were you shot?!” She exclaimed. The sight of his blood jarring her from her state of shock. Her voice quivered with concern, the adrenaline that had been keeping her emotions at bay dissipating as tears began to flow down her cheeks. “Oh my God…”
Beth turned and cried into his chest. Her tears streaming not from sadness or fear, but from complete and utter relief that Caroline was finally gone.
Darcy gently shushed her, still too on edge to fully respond.
He unlocked the door to their room, carrying her into the room and kicking the door closed behind him.
He brought her directly over to the couch, sitting down, and held her tight against his chest. There they sat for several minutes, Darcy clasping her close; he held her as though the second he let go, she would disappear.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” he rasped into her hair, his voice thick over the tears she knew he was holding back. She could only imagine what he had thought, seeing her and Caroline – and the gun.
“I’m here,” she whispered, trying to comfort him, but he wouldn’t let her move; he kept her locked against him.
“John and I turned the corner and I saw her… with the gun pointed at you…” He trailed off, the memory overwhelming him. “I heard it in her voice; I saw it in her eyes – her insane hatred. She was going to shoot you; she was ready to kill you just to give herself a chance with me.”
“Shh,” Beth hushed. “But, she didn’t. She didn’t shoot me; I’m still here.”
“And then when you lunged at her. Christ, Beth,” he swore. “What the fuck were you thinking diving towards a loaded gun?” The anger in his voice wasn’t really directed at her, but at the thought of what could have happened if things hadn’t gone the way that they did.
“I saw it too… her hatred for me when she noticed the ring. I didn’t even remember that I had it on, but when I moved my hand that was holding my shoe, she saw it and it set her over the edge,” Beth explained thickly.
“I don’t know if she would have pulled out the gun anyway, but I saw the moment that whatever rational thought remained with her, disappeared. ”
“She would have, Beth.” Darcy reassured her. “Just look at everything that she did; she hasn’t been thinking clearly for a long time…”
“I saw that she was going to go through with it, but when you got there, she was distracted and I thought it was my only shot – I mean, my only chance to get the upper hand,” Beth rambled.
“I didn’t… I don’t know what I was thinking.
I didn’t have time to think. I remember I was holding my shoe, I remember seeing the look in her eyes change when she heard what you said… I did the only thing I could think of.”
Beth paused to take a breath, trying to calm herself down when she realized that she wasn’t the one shaking – Darcy was.